Management science (MS) is the broad interdisciplinary study of problem solving and decision making in human organizations, with strong links to management, economics, business, engineering, management consulting, and other fields. It uses various scientific research-based principles, strategies, and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and accurate management decisions by arriving at optimal or near optimal solutions to complex decision problems. Management science helps businesses to achieve goals using various scientific methods.
In commerce, supply chain management (SCM), the management of the flow of goods and services, between businesses and locations, and includes the movement and storage of raw materials, of work-in-process inventory, and of finished goods as well as end to end order fulfillment from point of origin to point of consumption. Interconnected, interrelated or interlinked networks, channels and node businesses combine in the provision of products and services required by end customers in a supply chain.
Operations research, often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of advanced analytical methods to improve decision-making. It is sometimes considered to be a subfield of mathematical sciences. The term management science is sometimes used as a synonym.
Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics is the management of the flow of things between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. The resources managed in logistics may include tangible goods such as materials, equipment, and supplies, as well as food and other consumable items.
In commerce, a supply chain is a system of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in supplying a product or service to a consumer. Supply chain activities involve the transformation of natural resources, raw materials, and components into a finished product and deliver to the end customer. In sophisticated supply chain systems, used products may re-enter the supply chain at any point where residual value is recyclable. Supply chains link value chains. Suppliers in a supply chain are often ranked by "tier", first-tier suppliers being those who supply direct to the client business, second-tier being suppliers to the first tier, etc.
A value chain is a set of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product for the market. The concept comes through business management and was first described by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing organization as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources – money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits.
Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) is a major command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force (USAF). AFMC was created on July 1, 1992, through the amalgamation of the former Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC) and the former Air Force Systems Command (AFSC).
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) is a combat support agency in the United States Department of Defense (DoD), with more than 26,000 civilian and military personnel throughout the world. Located in 48 states and 28 countries, DLA provides supplies to the military services and supports their acquisition of weapons, fuel, repair parts, and other materials. The agency also disposes of excess or unusable equipment through various programs.
Network-centric warfare, also called network-centric operations or net-centric warfare, is a military doctrine or theory of war that seeks to translate an information advantage, enabled in part by information technology, into a competitive advantage through the robust computer networking of well informed geographically dispersed forces. It was pioneered by the United States Department of Defense in the 1990s.
The Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO) was a key element of the UK Ministry of Defence, responsible for supporting the armed forces throughout the various stages of an operation or exercise; from training, deployment, in-theatre training and conduct of operations, through to recovery and recuperation ready for redeployment.
Demand-chain management (DCM) is the management of relationships between suppliers and customers to deliver the best value to the customer at the least cost to the demand chain as a whole. Demand-chain management is similar to supply-chain management but with special regard to the customers.
The Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System was an enterprise program of the Business Transformation Agency's Defense Business Systems Acquisition Executive, within the United States Department of Defense (DoD). As the largest enterprise resource planning program ever implemented for human resources, DIMHRS was to subsume or replace over 90 legacy systems. The first phase of DIMHRS was expected to roll out first to the U.S. Army in 2009 and bring all payroll and personnel functions for the Army into one integrated web-based system. The U.S. Air Force, United States Navy and the Marines were expected to roll out in that order after the Army had implemented it. On January 16, 2009, the Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum directing the MILDEPS and the Defense Finance Accounting Service (DFAS), to confirm the "core" enterprise requirements of the capability at that time. Once, confirmed, the BTA was to transition the solution to the individual MILDEPS to build out and deploy their own required personnel and pay solutions using the "core" to the maximum extent possible..(Memorandum, Deputy Secretary of Defense, January 16, 2009, Subject: Acquisition Decision Memorandum for the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System). The solution was transitioned to the MILDEPS on September 30, 2009. After numerous delays, technical problems, and other issues, in February 2010, the DoD completed the transition of the program, after 11 years and $850 million.
The 448th Supply Chain Management Wing, a wing of the Air Force Sustainment Center of Air Force Material Command serves as the Air Force's supply chain manager headquartered at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
The Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) is the United States Navy's supply command, providing the Navy and United States Marine Corps with supplies, services, and quality-of-life support.
VSE Corporation is a diversified products and services company providing repair services, distribution, logistics, supply chain management support and consulting services for land, sea and air transportation assets in the public and private sectors. VSE serves commercial customers as well as the United States Government, including the United States Department of Defense ("DoD"), federal civilian agencies and other customers. Operations include parts supply and distribution, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (“MRO”) services for ground transport and aviation; vehicle and equipment refurbishment; logistics; engineering; IT and health care IT solutions; and energy and mismanagement consulting services.
The 635th Supply Chain Operations Wing, United States Air Force, is a logistics wing. It reports to the Air Force Sustainment Center, part of Air Force Materiel Command, and serves as the Air Force's new supply chain manager headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. It is an associate tenant at the base.
Shekar Natarajan, was born 23 July 1979 in Secunderabad, India. He is the SVP of Global Inventory, Supply Chain, Logistics and Customer Promise. He formerly served as the Senior Vice President of Network Planning and Operational Design for Target Corporation. He also serves as a panelist at international conferences and writes in the field of supply chain management.
Last mile is a term used in supply chain management and transportation planning to describe the last leg of a journey comprising the movement of people and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination. "Last mile" was adopted from the telecommunications industry which faced difficulty connecting individual homes to the main telecommunications network. Similarly, in supply chain management last-mile describes the difficult last part in the transportation of people and packages from hubs to final destinations. Last-mile delivery is an increasingly studied field as the number of business to consumer (b2c) deliveries grow especially from e-commerce companies in freight transportation, and ride-sharing companies in personal transportation. Some challenges of last-mile delivery include minimizing cost, ensuring transparency, increasing efficiency, and improving infrastructure.
SolveIT Software Pty Ltd is a provider of advanced planning and scheduling enterprise software for supply and demand optimisation and predictive modelling. Based in Adelaide, South Australia, 70% of its turnover is generated from software deployed in the mining and bulk material handling sectors.
Geographic analytics is an analytical approach of strategic management and data analytics in order to efficiently make geographic decisions. Examples of such decisions are choosing the location for a warehouse or planning the regions for a marketing campaign. Data, information and framing conditions are visualized on maps in order to derive recommendations for action.
